Through the project, the performance of innovative ocean renewable energy technologies will be demonstrated in real sea conditions, helping to leverage the investment needed to take these new products to market.

Access to test sites will be provided through a programme of competitive calls, run by the project’s consortium.

The programme covers the following test centres:

European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC): Orkney Islands, UK

SmartBay: Galway, Ireland

SEM-REV: Nantes, France

Tidal Testing Centre: Den Oever, Netherlands

The test centres are supported by European industry group Ocean Energy Europe, based in Brussels.

European technologies are the clear global leader in ocean energy. To translate this leadership into a new industrial sector, it is essential that a critical mass of technologies receive enough private investment to take them to the marketplace.

The cost of pre-commercial testing and demonstration for ocean energy is high and investors are reluctant to invest until the technology has been proven in the sea at scale. The result is that precisely at the point when risks are highest and capital requirements most intensive – (e.g. open ocean testing and demonstration) – technology developers hit a funding brick wall.

The FORESEA programme will encourage longer term testing and technology de-risking, thereby leveraging further investment and enabling progression towards the marketplace.